Source:
E-mail dt. 31.7.2012
Innovative
Thinking
Prof. Nitesh Giri
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
College of Business Management
Nagpur, India
The best way to have a good idea is to have a
lot of ideas."
— Dr. Linus Pauling
Learning to think
creatively is the best business survival tool there is. Research has shown that
regardless of age or education, everyone has the capacity to become more
creative. Here are six tips to help you enhance your creativity and stimulate
creativity with your co-workers.
1. Open Your Mind
Have one new experience every day; no matter how small. New
experiences stimulate the brain and help you make new and original connections;
critical for boosting breakthroughs. Attend new forms of entertainment, read
books or magazines you’ve never read before, take a class in a subject you know
nothing about, listen to music you profess to hate, go somewhere really
different on your next vacation, talk to people you normally don’t have a
chance to meet. New experiences become the raw material for new ideas. The
cross-pollination of diverse ideas is a primary stimulator for creativity.
2. Diversify
Involve others in your problem-solving efforts that bring a
different perspective or cultural experience than yours. In addition to picking
the brains of experts and knowledgeable colleagues, talk to people who are
unfamiliar about the issue. By using this approach, you’ll be asked “dumb
questions” that can often help you question assumptions, and see your challenge
from a different angle with fresh eyes and a more open mind.
3. Stop Looking for the Right Answer
Look for many right answers. Multiple solution thinking can help
you strengthen your creative muscle, while generating more ideas, which always
leads to better ideas. Setting idea quotas can force you to push the envelope,
forging past predictable, obvious solutions.
4. Mind Mapping
The human brain is very different from a computer. Whereas a
computer works in a linear fashion, the brain works associatively as
well as linearly - comparing, integrating and synthesizing as it goes.
Association plays a dominant role in nearly every mental function, and words
themselves are no exception. Every single word and idea has numerous links
attaching it to other ideas and concepts.
5. Six Thinking Hats
There are six metaphorical hats and the thinker can put on or
take off one of these hats to indicate the type of thinking being used. This
putting on and taking off is essential. The hats must never be used to
categorize individuals, even though their behavior may seem to invite this.
When done in group, everybody wear the same hat at the same time.
White Hat thinking
We need some white hat thinking at this point means let’s drop
the arguments and proposals, and look at the data base."
Red Hat thinking
This covers intuition, feelings and emotions. The red hat allows
the thinker to put forward an intuition without any need to justify it.
"Putting on my red hat, I think this is a terrible proposal." Usually
feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they are
supported by logic. Usually the feeling is genuine but the logic is spurious.
The red hat gives full permission to a thinker to put forward his or her
feelings on the subject at the moment.
Black Hat thinking
This is the hat of judgment and caution. It is a most valuable
hat. It is not in any sense an inferior or negative hat. The black hat is used
to point out why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience,
the system in use, or the policy that is being followed. The black hat must
always be logical.
Yellow Hat thinking
This is the logical positive. Why something will work and why it
will offer benefits. It can be used in looking forward to the results of some
proposed action, but can also be used to find something of value in what has
already happened.
Green Hat thinking
This is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, what is
interesting, provocations and changes.
Blue Hat thinking
This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the
subject itself but at the 'thinking' about the subject. "Putting on my
blue hat, I feel we should do some greener hat thinking at this point." In
technical terms, the blue hat is concerned with meta-cognition.